NARRATOR: It was one of the greatest civilisations on earth, but its secrets lay hidden.
All that was left of ancient Egypt
were the crumbling remains of its stunning monuments.
But why they were built and who built them remained a mystery.
The answer surely lay here, in the sacred texts of the pharaohs,
the hieroglyphs.
For centuries, scholars had struggled to crack the code,
all of them had failed.
In the end it would take a war to help solve the mystery.
On one side, Napoleon Bonaparte, the most feared warrior in Europe.
On the other, the might of the British Empire.
But long after the guns went silent,
the battle over the hieroglyphs would rage on between two of Europe's most brilliant minds.
From France, a poor country boy, a genius of language.
Test me, go on.
- All right. Chair. - "Sey".
- Table. - "Sotchee".
- Bed. - "Loll".
His name, Jean-Francois Champollion.
If this is right, then so am I.
And from England, the most brilliant mind of a generation.
Where do you start?
Mathematics.
Urbane and rational, a celebrated scientist, Thomas Young.
The heads must face the start of the word.
That's how we know which way to read them.
This was to be a duel with much more than just personal pride at stake.
Remember, we cannot possibly let the French beat us to it.
I shall translate the hieroglyphs. That'll be my revenge on those English barbarians.
The most important clue was a stone covered in strange writing.
Both men believed they could unlock its secrets.
Here it is, the hieroglyph for priest.
Ra-m-Ss.
Ramesses!
Only one of them would succeed.
When Napoleon Bonaparte invaded Egypt in 1798,
he did more than just conquer a country.
He uncovered a lost civilisation.
Egypt had been virtually closed to Europeans for centuries,
and when the French saw the pyramids of Giza, they were astonished.
4,500 years after its construction,
the Great Pyramid was still the tallest building in the world.
Everything about this ancient culture seemed extraordinary.
Over here, come and take a look at this.
What do you think it is?
Different scripts on one stone.
Why would they do that?
This is Greek, we can read this!
NARRATOR: There were three inscriptions on the stone.
The mysterious ancient hieroglyphs at the top,
then another unknown text, and at the bottom, ancient Greek.
This was a unique find.
Although the first two texts were unreadable,
Greek was a well-known language and could be easily translated.
Along with his soldiers, Napoleon had taken an army of scholars
to unravel Egypt's ancient culture,
including antiquarians, artists and linguists.
It says here that all three scripts are saying the same thing.
NARRATOR: So, by translating the Greek, they would know what the hieroglyph said.
But there were problems, and the first one was Horatio Nelson.
At the Battle of the Nile in August 1798,
Nelson had attacked the French fleet at Alexandria and ripped it to shreds,
trapping the French in Egypt.
After three years of siege, the British finally ran the French out of Egypt.
Now, everything France had gained belonged to Britain and her allies.
We agreed, General Menou, that your scientists may keep all their notes, drawings and papers,
but I must make clear that the antiquities you have seized may not leave the country with you,
and that includes the stone.
Stone? What stone?
That stone.
No, I'm sorry. That particular stone doesn't belong to the Republic. It's mine, personally.
I bought it from a local trader.
Perhaps you could provide us with a bill of sale.
Hm.
NARRATOR: The French had, however, thought to make copies of the stone.
Their finest linguists and code breakers in Paris were already trying to crack it.
Most notably an academic called Silvestre de Sacy.
But its meaning eluded him.
As far as he could work out, the hieroglyphs were mystical symbols.
But far away in the provinces, a child prodigy, Jean-Francois Champollion, was growing up.
Although too poor for a privileged education,
his elder brother encouraged his gift for languages
and by the time he was 13, Champollion spoke six ancient tongues.
From childhood he was fascinated by the question of when the first civilisation began.
- Good day at school? - No.
Boring.
(Mumbling) Four thousand, three hundred, then...
I've done it. I've worked out the age of the world.
And how did you manage that?
Easy. Genesis, Chapter 5.
I counted back through all the ancestors of Noah, right back to Adam, and added up their ages.
So how old is it?
4,327, I think.
NARRATOR: As Champollion grew up,
he began to believe the answer lay in the ancient hieroglyphs.
Stop it, those shoes have got to last.
You're the fussiest brother in the world. I can be angry, can't I?
The stone was discovered by France.
We have copies of the inscriptions.
It's not the same thing. How do you know if the copy is accurate?
I wanted to see the stone, to touch it.
My quest for the true age of the world is over
if I can't read the hieroglyphs, the oldest language from the oldest nation.
There are experts in Paris working on translating them.
It's just a matter of time.
I can't wait for other people to do it. What if the English translate them first?
If you can get me a good copy of the inscription, then I'll do it. I shall translate the hieroglyphs.
That'll be my revenge on those English barbarians, you'll see.
NARRATOR: Originally, there may have been hundreds of copies of the stone.
The Greek inscription suggested this was an act of propaganda
on behalf of Egypt's 285th pharaoh, Ptolemy V.
When he commissioned it in 196 BC, his reign, along with Egypt, was in trouble.
By this time, the Egyptian civilisation had existed for 3,000 years,
but its glory days were well in the past.
After a series of invasions,
it had been conquered by the Greek-speaking warlord Alexander the Great in 332 BC.
He had made himself pharaoh, brought in his own government,
and Greek became the language of the rulers.
The new elite could neither speak the local language nor read the hieroglyphs,
and their presence fuelled resentment in Egypt.
Under Ptolemy V, the country was in open revolt.
So, out of desperation, in temples throughout the land, he erected stone tablets.
Each proclaimed Ptolemy's virtues and underlined his claim to be rightful pharaoh.
The Rosetta Stone did not reflect the glorious achievements of pharaohs past.
It was a pathetic symbol of Egypt's decline.
The beginning of the end of a great culture.
A culture whose writings would soon become obscure and indecipherable.
Come and have a look at this.
See this?
What, that oval shape?
It's a cartouche. That's what they call them now.
The soldiers thought they looked like cartridges from their rifles, you see.
I suppose so.
Well, some people think this shape...
contains a name, maybe a royal name.
No one's been able to prove it?
No, but if the scholars are right, then this...
means "Ptolemy", doesn't it?
Maybe. But how? Are hieroglyphs letters? Is there an alphabet?
Is it just Ptolemy's name or does it describe him?
Is it all his royal titles? We don't know.
But we have your translation of the Greek. We know what it's saying.
"King Ptolemy, manifest God, whose excellence is fine."
So if this means "Ptolemy", then these next to him
mean "manifest God whose excellence is fine", don't they?
And how do you prove it? What if you read them in the other direction?
(Exasperated sigh)
Then these say it instead.
But aren't hieroglyphs symbols and not words?
- Meaning what? - I don't know, think of a coat of arms.
We know what that indicates, who it stands for, but we can't read it.
Napoleon's experts thought they'd crack this in a matter of weeks. They didn't.
Professor Sacy has been working on it in Paris for years, and others, too.
It's not going to be easy.
The answer is in here somewhere and I'm going to find it.
(Knocking at door)
Come.
This just arrived for you, sir.
You'll understand the French are already ahead of us.
And we're going to look pretty damned foolish if they translate this wretched stone
while we've got it sitting in the British Museum.
I see your point.
Anyway, we've heard that you're the man for the job.
So what do you say?
NARRATOR: The Englishman Thomas Young was a brilliant scientist,
a man of the Enlightenment.
Amongst his achievements were how the human eye focused and a theory of how light travelled.
His next challenge was to bring ancient Egypt back to life.
Apart from his immense wealth, Young had one advantage over Champollion
in unlocking the secrets of this mysterious civilisation.
The British possessed the Rosetta Stone.
Well, even I can read this bit.
"Captured by the British army in 1801."
If only the rest was as easy.
What are hieroglyphs?
Are they words or just pictures?
Well, they're pictures, aren't they?
Are we supposed to even read them at all?
And if we can, is it from left to right? Right to left? Top to bottom?
How can knowledge just disappear like that?
Surely there must be someone who understands them?
Didn't anyone leave a record of what they mean?
Not as far as we know. This could be our best chance.
It's not going to be easy. Look at this, it's badly damaged.
Does the stone end here or here?
How many of the hieroglyphs are missing? We just don't know.
Doesn't that make the task impossible?
Well, why don't you take a stab and find out?
Remember, we cannot possibly let the French beat us to it.
Here, here.
NARRATOR: The most serious problem for Young and Champollion
was that no one knew what hieroglyphs actually were.
Simply symbols or letters that made the sounds of a spoken language?
In every walk of life, symbols are used to communicate ideas.
But they're not a language.
They can't be spoken in the same way that the text of a book can be.
It was widely believed that hieroglyphs were, in fact, silent symbols.
But no one could be sure.
What's this?
It's for you. You won't get the education you deserve if you stay here.
- You're saying I can go to Paris? - What do you think I'm saying?
You can't pay for me. Where did you get all this?
I've been saving it. I'm not sure what for, really, so you may as well take it.
- I can't believe you'd do this for me. - Well, I have. So stop fussing.
I won't let you down.
YOUNG: This could be the key.
The Greek tells us that this was the common language of Egypt at the time.
I believe that hieroglyphs are symbols, but this script has the look of a spoken language.
There's more of it than hieroglyphs, too. That section's almost complete.
Where do you start?
- Mathematics. - What?
It's simple. If we count the number of times the Greek words appear...
I see. So we're looking for groups of symbols in here occurring the same number of times.
Then we have a chance to work out an alphabet, and from an alphabet, words.
And from words, sentences. Won't it take rather a long time?
Quite probably.
NARRATOR: The task would be made considerably easier
if either the stone's missing piece or a complete stone tablet could be found.
So the British sent an appeal to this man, Giovanni Belzoni,
the eccentric explorer who worked for the British Consul in Egypt tracking down artefacts.
Pull! Pull!
NARRATOR: It was said that if the missing piece was found,
it would be worth its weight in diamonds.
And if there was anyone who could find it, it was Belzoni,
a man who had a gift for discovering Egypt's ancient past.
It was the opportunity Champollion had been waiting for all his life.
He arrived in Paris to study Oriental languages with the country's leading linguist, Sacy,
a man who had struggled with the mystery of the hieroglyphs with little success.
Today you will begin your attempt to learn Persian.
A language steeped in the rich culture... Yes, Monsieur Letronne?
Will we be studying hieroglyphs during our time here?
No. I can see no good reason to study a script about which so little is known.
The English are trying to translate them.
I'm well aware of Mr Young's achievements in England, thank you.
Perhaps if we studied them, we could beat him.
Hieroglyphs are symbols, the embodiment of an idea.
Translating them is a task so monumentally difficult,
that it would take a lifetime, if indeed it could be achieved at all.
Now, if there are no other questions...
What is it, Monsieur Champollion?
Are you sure hieroglyphs are just symbols and not words and letters?
Oh, you're saying I'm wrong, along with every other classical scholar from antiquity?
Here you are, Monsieur Champollion...
enlighten us.
What does that hieroglyph mean?
I don't know.
Well, let's pursue something that we do know, shall we?
Gentlemen, open your Persian grammars at chapter one.
So...
what exactly do you wish to achieve here?
The origins of the world.
That's what's fascinated me ever since I was a boy.
That's a worthy subject.
When I first learned Latin, I thought that would help,
but I prefer the Greek version of the Bible, don't you?
That didn't provide the answers so I turned to Hebrew.
I'd like to tackle Aramaic while I'm here.
Can you imagine actually speaking the same language as our Lord?
I can, and I do, by the way.
There are so many questions I've always wanted to answer.
What language did Adam speak? Which is the oldest race in the world?
And if Moses wrote the first five books of the Bible,
why are they not in Egyptian, his native tongue?
I'm not sure that's something we need to question.
I know I can discover all the answers if I can just translate hieroglyphs.
Really? How interesting.
This is interesting. Have you got any word that crops up 24 times?
- It's not enough to be "and" or "the". - Uh-huh.
It's got to be something else.
Well, I've got "king" in the Greek,
"basileus", 23 times.
- Right. Basileus. I'm marking that as a possible. - Mmm.
The next word occurs 14 times.
Oh!
"Ptolemy" crops up 11 times. It could be the closest.
Yes, yes. This is promising. "Ptolemaios."
Excellent. More fun than you expected?
Well, it is if you've drunk enough port. Any more in there?
NARRATOR: Young treated the hieroglyphs as a code to be broken,
using the sheer power of logic and numerical analysis.
Surely, he felt, if he applied his brilliant mind for long enough,
the deeds the pharaohs described on the walls of their temples
would at last ring out loudly again.
But Champollion took a completely different approach to these ancient inscriptions.
As a linguist, he was determined to find the meaning of the hieroglyphs
through the study of the ancient languages of Egypt.
Champollion was becoming convinced that the hieroglyphs made words.
And words had to be spoken.
So he began to study the last known language spoken during the time of the hieroglyphs.
Coptic, the language of the Egyptian Christians.
NARRATOR: Coptic was still spoken in the churches of Coptic Christians,
including one in Paris.
(Singing)
Could this be the sound of the pharaohs?
If only Champollion could match these sounds to the hieroglyphs,
perhaps he might hear the pharaohs speak.
"Belson.
"Belson. Lavoi.
"Lavoi, lavoi. Miche, miche, miche.
"Met... Met... Metti. Merthi, merthi, merthi. "
What on earth are you doing?
Jacques-Joseph, how wonderful to see you.
- I didn't expect to see you so soon. - Clearly.
- What was that noise? - The four Coptic names for a lion.
Strictly speaking, "lavoi"means lioness.
Coptic?
Yes, the closest living language to common Egyptian.
The language spoken by the Egyptians around the time of Cleopatra and Alexander the Great.
And I found a church where they say mass in Coptic, right here in Paris,
and the priest is teaching me.
- Just what you need, another language. - Don't mock, this could be the key to everything.
- What on earth have you done to your breeches? - Oh, yes, I tore them on my first week.
- Never mind, it doesn't matter. - Take them off, give them to me.
Do you have a needle and thread?
Suppose the scripts of the stone are related, have you thought of that?
What if the hieroglyphs are just an older version of the common Egyptian?
Look.
It's here somewhere.
Take this sign from the common Egyptian. Don't you think it looks a bit like this hieroglyph?
A little.
Don't you see what I'm saying? If the hieroglyphs are connected to common Egyptian,
they're the script of a language, not vague mystical symbols.
Interesting theory. And you think this Coptic will help?
Well, maybe. If I can use it to work out common Egyptian.
Test me, go on, I'm pretty good. Ask me to name anything.
- All right. Chair. - "Sey".
- Table. - "Sotchee".
- Bed. - "Loll".
I can't see much else.
Ah, sun.
"Ray".
It's my favourite. Don't you just love that sound?
"Ray".
Stop showing off. Now, what's Coptic for lunch?
Damn! Damn! Damn! Damn!
- What is it? - Look at this.
Look at this from the stone and this from our papyrus. What's the difference?
Well, it looks like the same cartouche except the other way round.
You know what that means?
You must be able to read hieroglyphs in either direction.
- Well, how do you know which direction to choose? - Precisely.
This stops me in my tracks. I'd assumed left to right
as everything else on the Rosetta Stone appears to be read that way, but this...
Wrong!
- What? - It's a simple reflection, everything is turned!
Look! The heads must face the start of the word.
- That's how we know which way to read them. - Oh.
Well done.
NARRATOR: Young now began to publish a series of significant advances.
Most impressively, he suggested how the name Ptolemy
was spelt out in hieroglyphs.
Champollion, by contrast, was still preoccupied with the practical task of earning a living.
Assistant Professor. Has quite a ring to it, doesn't it?
- It's a start. - You'll be a great teacher.
Can't imagine you standing there saying, "Enlighten us," like old Sacy.
- What about you, Jean? - Ah, I'll find something.
Though times are changing. Who knows what the future holds in store for republicans like us?
- You mustn't give up on those hieroglyphs. - I won't, though sometimes I feel like it.
Look at this, my latest clues.
See this sign? Here it is in the Coptic, then into the common Egyptian,
then into the Ancient Egyptian and finally into the hieroglyphs, the oldest sign of them all.
Which reminds me, almost as old as your breeches.
Spare pair. No assistant professor should be without them.
Thank you.
- Ah, you clumsy oaf. - I'm so sorry.
- Rosine? - Jean-Francois? I thought it was you.
My God, you look so... Well, you're older, aren't you? Of course you are.
- Are you back from Paris to stay? - Yes, I'm back with Jacques-Joseph and Zoe.
- They seem so happy together. - They are. I'm very envious.
- You'd like to have married Zoe? - Oh, no, I mean... Well, I don't know what I mean.
My mother, I have to go.
Can I see you again?
It is our duty as scientists to question everything,
whether it is the right of those who govern us or the power of those who direct our beliefs.
You must always remember the study of ancient history is a quest for truth,
however uncomfortable that truth may be. Andre?
Professor Champollion, will we be studying hieroglyphs?
Yes. Yes, we most certainly will.
Thank you.
NARRATOR: In 1815, defeat at the Battle of Waterloo
meant the end for Napoleon and the short-lived French Republic.
France was thrown into political turmoil.
- How did it go today? - Well, thank you, Zoe.
Yeah, they're so keen to learn, especially about Egypt.
Sometimes it's difficult to get them off the subject.
I called by to see Rosine on my way home.
- How is she? - Wonderful, as always.
I even managed a few words with her father this time.
- I find him very difficult. - Hmm.
What on earth do you talk about?
Nothing much.
I just asked for his daughter's hand in marriage.
(Choking) Marry Rosine Blanc? You can't.
- Why not? - She's just a girl.
- She has no interest in languages or your work. - Then I'll teach her.
- Isn't her father a Royalist? - Well, I'll teach him, too.
(Knocking at door)
- He couldn't possibly have agreed to the match? - No, but I shall work on him.
And what if his future son-in-law's the first man to translate hieroglyphs?
I have a warrant for the arrest of Jacques-Joseph and Jean-Francois Champollion.
On what charge?
Using the university library to hold political meetings and plotting against the King.
- That's not true. - You've been found guilty of sedition.
You'll be removed from your teaching posts and exiled to your father's home in Figeac.
I'll wait for you!
(Mumbling)
Fourteen.
Priest.
Fourteen.
Priest.
Fourteen to the left.
Ah!
Here it is.
This, my dear Gurney, is the hieroglyph for "priest".
That means you've found "God", "king", "Osiris", "Isis" and now "priest".
- Well, wait till the French see this. - I'm not sure we need to worry.
Sacy tells me that poor old Champollion has fallen foul of the new rulers
and been thrown out of his job.
NARRATOR: And there was more good news for Young
thanks to the explorer Giovanni Belzoni.
Hamet. There.
NARRATOR: His quest for Egyptian artefacts had taken him to the south of Egypt.
And whilst he hadn't managed to unearth another copy of the Rosetta Stone,
at the temple of Philae, he claimed an ancient Egyptian artefact
which promised to be almost as useful.
What did I tell you? I could fill 10 boats from this place.
This is beautiful. Don't you wonder what it means?
NARRATOR: One of the few men in the world
who might have known what was written on this obelisk
was in exile in the French countryside, Jean-Francois Champollion.
But his brother Jacques-Joseph's long campaign to get him released finally paid off.
Champollion was all set to return to Paris.
GURNEY: Belzoni brought this obelisk from the island of Philae.
Apparently there's a Greek inscription on the base that mentions Cleopatra.
In which case, this should be her cartouche.
What if Champollion's already got a copy now that he's back in Paris?
Then we've got a race on our hands.
- Have you done it? - Almost.
I have a P, an O and an L from Ptolemy already. And this must be a K.
It's Cleopatra, I'm sure of it. It's an obelisk from England sent to me by an old college friend.
But can you trust him? We've hardly had any reliable copies of anything yet.
If this is right, then so am I. Let me show you.
This is what I think the Cleopatra cartouche should look like.
My God, they're identical. You've beaten him, you can read hieroglyphs.
No, I can't. Cleopatra is a modern Greek name translated into hieroglyphs.
I need to prove that I can read real Ancient Egyptian names.
Names written in hieroglyphs in the first place.
Maybe Sacy was right all along. Maybe ancient hieroglyphs are just silent symbols.
NARRATOR: But Champollion had taken an important step.
He had worked out a hypothetical hieroglyphic alphabet.
And by using it to write the cartouche for Cleopatra,
he now had evidence that the alphabet was correct.
He had done this not just by logical deduction,
but by using the languages of Coptic and common Egyptian
to work out the precise sounds of each hieroglyph.
William Bankes' obelisk now stands in the grounds of the Kingston Lacy Estate in Dorset.
Ironically, although it looked like giving Young an advantage in the race,
the obelisk ended up making his life more difficult.
Because in his reading of its hieroglyphs, he made a crucial mistake.
Damn it, there's always something!
It says "Cleopatra" in the Greek, but the first hieroglyph's clearly wrong.
You know, Gurney, sometimes I'd rather have my teeth pulled.
(Knocking at door)
Oh, my God, Letronne! What are you doing here?
For you. Drawings. Friend of mine's just been to Egypt.
Heard Young was getting close so I thought you might need them.
That is kind. Come in, come in.
It's a ruined temple at Abu Simbel. Any use to you?
Oh, it's beautiful. What I wouldn't give to be standing there.
LETRONNE: Who's in the cartouche?
I don't know, I've not seen that one before.
NARRATOR: Abu Simbel was an ancient temple.
This monument was constructed long before the country was colonised by Alexander the Great
so the hieroglyphs which covered its walls were old enough
never to have been corrupted by ancient Greek.
The man who built this temple is widely seen as the greatest pharaoh of them all.
And when this huge complex was constructed, he was at the height of his power.
The four 65-foot statues which guard the entrance to the building
were images of the pharaoh himself.
A smaller temple at the side was a monument to love,
a pharaoh's love for his queen.
It was Giovanni Belzoni himself who had discovered the inner temple in 1817.
Time to go in.
Despite his achievement,
Belzoni was unable to read the thousands of hieroglyphs
that covered the temple walls.
Now I understand the man who built this.
I don't know his name, but I know he is a real showman.
Champollion would now attempt to read the name of this ancient pharaoh
for the first time in over a thousand years.
- There. - Remember Sacy? Enlighten us.
How close are we to enlightenment after all these years?
Well, we know that it's a royal name.
True. And this is an ancient temple, it's not Greek or Roman.
- What does that one look like to you? - I always thought it was like the sun.
What if it was more than just a symbol?
What if this ancient hieroglyph also made a sound?
- Would Coptic help? - The Coptic for sun is "Ray".
And the Egyptian god was also known as Ra.
And I know this one. This double hieroglyph at the end makes the "S" sound in Ptolemaios.
- What about that one? - I don't know. But what if it was the letter "M"?
Ra-m-S. Ramess.
Ramesses!
The "M" was a guess also based on Coptic.
But he was right, this is Ramesses.
The pharaoh had spoken and Champollion had heard his voice across the millennia.
By translating the hieroglyphs for Ramesses,
Champollion proved he could read the code of the pharaohs.
He was now able to confirm that his hieroglyphic alphabet
could be extended to read words written over 3,000 years ago.
He'd done it by going backwards in time, beginning with the Coptic,
then common Egyptian, finally arriving at ancient hieroglyphs.
Champollion at last had the key to making the mysterious hieroglyphs
that covered every temple wall in Egypt speak their secrets.
The word "Ra"in Ramesses is directly related to the Coptic word "Ray", meaning sun.
The rest of his name was also a Coptic expression meaning "born of".
In Ancient Egyptian culture, Ra was the creator of Egypt,
a sun god, one of the most important of all Egyptian deities.
He was represented with a disc, the sun, on his head.
All pharaohs were said to be related to him.
The name Ramesses literally means "child of the sun god".
Champollion had worked out that the hieroglyphs weren't only symbols, but also a language.
He now possessed the first clues for bringing ancient Egypt back to life.
Champollion's revelation happened in the autumn of 1822,
24 years after the stone had been discovered.
Sorry.
I've done it. I've done it.
Jean-Francois! Jean-Francois! Jean-Francois!
But there was a twist.
Champollion's exhausting achievement edged him into dangerous territory.
The Catholic Church was deeply concerned
about what an understanding of the hieroglyphs might lead to.
The reason? Noah's flood.
Biblical scholars dated the event to the year 2349 BC.
If the hieroglyphs proved that the whole Egyptian civilisation
had begun before the flood was supposed to have happened
and continued unaffected by it, then that would create a serious problem for the Church.
As far as the Church was concerned at the time, the Bible was historically accurate.
So if the code of the pharaohs proved that it wasn't,
the Church's teaching would be seriously undermined.
This new area of study...
I suppose one must bow to fashion and call it Egyptology...
raises some interesting questions, does it not?
Indeed, particularly about the age and origins of the world.
Exactly. So my question to you is this.
Whose side is he on?
Whatever I might think of his political views, Father Abbot, Champollion is a brilliant scholar.
And therefore, in this field,
if he is not a strict adherent to the faith,
he is a danger to the Church, wouldn't you say?
Only if he succeeds.
Jean-Francois! Jean-Francois! Jean-Francois!
Thank God. I thought you were going to die.
You don't get rid of me that easily. There's still too much work to be done.
It's time to tell people.
NARRATOR: Champollion started to let the world know what he'd discovered
in books, pamphlets and a series of lectures.
- Has he done it? - I don't know.
You said it would be impossible, that's what I told the Holy Father.
- That may yet be true. - But you don't know that.
If a loose cannon like Champollion can read hieroglyphs,
who knows what he'll attempt to discover.
The Church, and the Church alone, declares the dates of the world's creation.
Do you want that power in his hands?
- Monsieur Champollion. - Professor, good to see you.
- Hello. - Sir.
Champollion.
- Welcome. - Nice to meet you. Thank you.
This way, please.
Wish me luck.
NARRATOR: Thomas Young was in Paris for one of his lectures.
It has long been believed that the hieroglyphic script of ancient Egypt
is a silent representation of ideas.
But as Thomas Young in England has already indicated in his studies,
the names of the Greek and Roman pharaohs of Egypt were spelled out in hieroglyphs
that could be read. I agree with him.
But no one, not even Doctor Young,
has claimed that hieroglyphs from any other period
could be read or spoken, until today. And that is what I believe.
(Murmuring)
Can you prove this, Monsieur Champollion?
Let us start with a cartouche.
And now four simple hieroglyphs.
Here at the end of the cartouche,
we have a hieroglyph also seen at the end of Ptolemaios.
Making the sound "S".
This I strongly believe to be an "M". And here we have something else.
Not just a symbol, but a sound. A sign indicating the sun.
In Coptic, "Ray" but also known as the god Ra.
Which gives us Ra-m-ss.
Ramesses.
An ancient Egyptian and not a Greek pharaonic name.
Surely this is guesswork, not science. The ancient hieroglyphs are silent.
There was another cartouche at Abu Simbel.
We have the M and the S. But what is this bird?
To me it looks like the Egyptian ibis. A bird associated with which god?
- Thoth. - Exactly, Professor Sacy.
Another symbolic hieroglyph that also provides us with a sound.
The sound that you have so eloquently pronounced.
Put these sounds together and we have Thoth-Mo-Sis. Tuthmosis.
The name of pharaohs who ruled 1,500 years before Alexander the Great conquered Egypt.
(Murmuring)
What this means, gentlemen, is that hieroglyphs are the script of a spoken language.
With further study, we may be able to read all hieroglyphs
back to the beginning of ancient Egyptian civilisation.
Knowledge of this hidden time may provide us with the answers
of questions that have long troubled us.
For example, the exact origins of the world.
Monsieur Champollion? Thomas Young.
- We meet at last. - Congratulations.
You've done well to extend my hieroglyphic alphabet.
But as you said, this theory of yours is still untested.
Oh, I fully intend to test it on every papyrus and document I can find.
My dream is to go to Egypt and read from the tombs and monuments themselves.
- This is just the beginning. - Well, we shall see.
You seem to have staked your entire life's work and reputation on proving this theory.
What can I say? Good luck to you, Monsieur Champollion.
Champollion has yet to prove that he can read all hieroglyphs.
That's little comfort to the Church, Professor Sacy.
I've heard enough to know
that this man has the power to undermine all of us.
He must be stopped.